The Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), leader of the Formula 1 World Championship, set the fastest time in the second free practice for the Australian Grand Prix, the third of the year, which takes place at the semi-urban Albert Park circuit in Melbourne, in the one that the Spaniards Carlos Sainz -partner of the previous one in the ‘Scuderia’ and who had been the fastest in the first test- and Fernando Alonso (Alpine) marked the third and the fourth time, respectively; and the Mexican Sergio Pérez (Red Bull), the fifth.
In the best of his 27 laps, Leclerc covered – on a soft tyre, like the rest, when preparing for qualifying, before doing long sim race runs – the 5,303 meters of the Australian track in one minute, 18 seconds and 978 thousandths, 245 less than the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull), the last world champion, who repeated the revamped Albert Park track 22 times in a session in which everyone set the best times of the day.
Sainz -second in the World Cup, with 33 points, twelve less than Leclerc- showed that he will be back in the fight in Australia; following being second in Bahrain and third in Arabia. The talented driver from Madrid completed 27 laps and in the best of them he was 398 thousandths of the time of his teammate; in a training that ended at 21 degrees Celsius ambient and with 28 on the asphalt.
His compatriot Alonso set the fourth time of the day. The Asturian double world champion, ninth in the first free, turned 22 times on the revamped track where he won with a Renault in 2006 -the year he revalidated the title-; and on his best lap he stopped the clock at 1:19.537, 559 thousandths behind Leclerc.
‘Checo’ entered fifth in the time table. The Mexican from Red Bull – who finished fourth in Arabia, where he had started from pole position – was 680 thousandths of a second behind the championship leader in the best of the twenty laps he gave in the followingnoon session; without major incidents and that it was stopped for a few minutes, with a red flag, to remove from the track the damage of one of the pieces (the ‘lip’) that had come off the front of the Canadian Lance Stroll’s car (Aston Martin) .
His German teammate Sebastian Vettel -quadruple world champion (2010-13, with Red Bull)-, who had broken his engine in the first session, did not go out on the track in the second, in which the Englishman Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) did not go beyond thirteenth time. The seven-time British world champion was just over a second and a half behind Leclerc’s time.
The third and last training session will take place this Saturday, hours before the qualifying that will order the starting grid of the Sunday race, scheduled for 58 laps, to complete a route of 307 and a half kilometers.
Second free practice time table for the Australian GP:
1. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari – 1:18.978
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull – a 0,245
3. Carlos Sainz – Ferrari – 0.398
4. Fernando Alonso – Alpine 0,559
5. Sergio Perez – Red Bull – 0.680
6. Esteban Ocon – Alpine – 0,864
7. Valtteri Bottas – Alfa Romeo – 1,077
8. Lando Norris – McLaren – 1,122
9. Pierre Gasly – Alpha Tauri – 1,164
10. Daniel Ricciardo – McLaren – 1,225
11. George Russell – Mercedes – 1,234
12. Yuki Tsunoda –Alpha Tauri –1,446
13. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes – 1,543
14. Lance Stroll – Aston Martin – 1,633
15. Zhou Guanyu – Alfa Romeo – 2,085
16. Kevin Magnussen – Haas – 2,213
17. Alexander Albon – Williams – 2,934
18. Mick Schumacher – Haas – 2,996
19. Nicholas Latifi – Williams – 3,329
20. Sebastian Vettel-Aston Martin-out of time